A musical about Wisconsin's POW's

An unusual chapter in Wisconsin's history is making its stage debut this summer. During World War Two German Prisoners were used as American farm hands. Some of them came to Door County to pick cherries.

"Victory Farm" is a musical about the POW's who came to Door County in 1945.

"You would think, why a musical," Katie Dahl asks. "What about German POW's screams musical theater? It seemed too odd and fascinating a story to pass up."

Dahl co-wrote the play and lyrics along with Emily Coulson. Their lyrics were set to music by well-known composer James Valq. Victory Farm is staged at the American Folklore Theater and runs until August 25th.

It opens with three POW's on a train bound for Wisconsin. Both Dahl and Coulson have personal ties to Door County: Dahl's family owned a cherry orchard going back generations, though they did not employ any prisoners. Still, a pickers' barracks was moved to the property years later. "I got to look at the carvings in the walls of the back room where they slept and there are a lot of people here in Door County who've sort of come out of the woodwork who do have stories, first hand knowledge of the POW's so we heard a lot of those stories in the process," Dahl says.

Emily Coulson says some of those stories came from an actual POW: 86 year old Werner Kouscop, who went back to Germany after the war. Coulson says she pressed him for stories of conflict between the Germans and the locals. "And he said 'no we all had a wonderful time, everyone was nice.' And we said something must've happened."

The pair also drew material from the book, "Stalag Wisconsin."

Door County's early immigrants came from Germany and Belgium. Coulson says some locals were glad to have a chance to speak the German language with the temporary workers. Two thousand POW's were stationed in Door County and there were at least another dozen camps in Wisconsin.

"Victory Farm" emphasizes the shared heritage as the POW's ride the train through Wisconsin, noting town names that were familiar to them, like Germantown, Belgium, Denmark, and Luxemburg.

The story focuses on the three and the women who run the orchard where they end up. The mother and daughter are recovering from the loss of their husband and father.

Coulson says the farmworkers had been vetted by the U-S Military and were not considered dangerous, that's why they were used to fill jobs normally done by local men who enlisted. "They end up on this orchard, the Bay View orchard. I don't know if I can say anymore without giving it away," she says.

Hilarity ensues?

"Some hilarity. Some moments of trying to find some common ground. I think what was so intriguing to us about this story in history and what we wanted to re-tell through the play were those moments of individuals finding common ground where larger groups couldn't possibly."

Katie Dahl and Emily Coulson say this is their first collaboration, and it's significant to them to have it presented at the theater. It's where they met as children and became friends through their love of the stage.

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